Williams gives Cy Springs good place to start in boys basketball

Published 6:30 am, Monday, December 1, 2008

The Cy Springs Panthers have one of the top basketball players in the Houston area in 6-foot-7 swingman Erik Williams.

& nbsp; But head coach John Harmatuk knows it takes more than one player to win a district championship.

“We are going to need to find some players to go around him,” said Harmatuk, who watched his team open the season with an 82-52 loss to Strake Jesuit.

“Erik is a great player,” he added. “We also have our defensive captain, 5-9 Jeremy Franklin, back at guard. He puts as good a pressure on the ball as anybody I have ever had.

“But that is it,” Harmatuk added. “We were pretty senior laden last year.”

Williams, who has signed with Marquette, scored 33 points in his team’s season-opener. The rest of the club scored 19.

“I am pleased with Erik’s decision to go to Marquette,” Harmatuk said. “It is the right kind of atmosphere. The players there are his type of players. Plus, he is playing in the best conference in country.”

But first things first.

Williams and Franklin are going to have to be forces every night for the Panthers to challenge Cy Woods and Langham Creek for the District 17-5A title.

Last year, the duo combined with Phillip McDonald to lead Cy Springs to a 31-7 record and berth in the Region III-5A quarterfinals.

“We lost to Madison (in the regional quarterfinals),” Harmatuk said of his 2007-2008 team. “(Madison’s) Tommy Mason-Griffin is as good a guard as I have seen. When is not scoring, he is getting everyone involved.”

Williams averaged 18 points per game a year ago until he broke his foot on Jan. 1.

“He didn’t play the rest of the season (after that),” Harmatuk said. “But he has=2 0no ill affects from that now. He is fully healed now.”

Harmatuk said the district race is “more wide open” this year than it has been in previous seasons.

“Cy Woods has everybody back and they are loaded with talent and lots of size,” Harmatuk said. “Any time you return every single player, that is a plus. They were really talented last year. The first year we had a senior class, we went two rounds deep in the playoffs. It is a big plus to have the same varsity twice.

“Langham Creek also is going to be very good,” he added. “They are as deep and talented as anybody (in the district).”

Harmatuk said the key to the Panthers’ season will be how they mature as a team.

“We know we have Erik Williams,” he said. “But we have to find out who we are as a team. That will be our story this year.”

Cy Springs will play in the Cy-Fair, Aldine and Kingwood Invitational tournaments before moving into conference play.

“We have a chance to catch them in the Kingwood tournament,” Harmatuk said. “That would be fun. I am very proud of Scott. He is in a great school district. We are both from there. He should do a really good job.”

“We owe a lot to Randy,” said Harmatuk, who took over at Cy Springs after Gilmer left to go to Nimitz.

Besides the tournaments, Cy Springs also will play Second Bapti st, St. Thomas, Spring and Klein Forest in non-district play.

“We have a good schedule,” Harmatuk said. “But there are so many good high school players in Houston now. It is tough to get into the playoffs in any district.”

This year, Cy Springs will be in Region II instead of Region III.

“That is a big change because we get the Austin area for the first round,” Harmatuk said. “We have an athletic directors’ agreement with them that the first- and second-place teams will host first-round games and third and fourth-place teams will go on the road. If you have to go on the road, that makes a big difference.”